Tag Archives: Germany

Yes We Can (Hold Babies) – European Edition

Recently President Obama travelled to Europe, Turkey, and Iraq in a his first large-scale trip abroad that resulted in massive international relations coup. His trip featured 18 bilateral meetings with world leaders – two major speeches (Prague and Ankara) – hosted two town hall meetings (France and Turkey) – six news conferences with a total of 35 questions – and traveled approximately 10,000 miles. Obama’s trip was a PR triumph, while he began the slow process of rebuilding America’s relationship with our allies across the globe.

Some Post-Trip Diagnosis

From whitehouse.org: The White House posted a great gallery of photos from the trip. These photos are interesting in that they are not the usual photo op photos, eg Obama + Foreign Head of State + Flags. They depict various behind the scenes instances that would not usually be released to the public. Also, some badass Air Force One/Marine One photos.

From Salon: Our man Juan Cole shreds conservative punditry for their negative reaction to Obama’s trip. He compares the hysteria of the right to the insanity caused by War of the Worlds radio broadcast and describes the Republican sphere of commentary as:

The weeping and trembling of Sean Hannity, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh and William Kristol underlined once again that the right-wingers are playground crybabies who kick and scream and faint whenever they do not get their way.

Professor Cole then proceeds to tear down every part of Republican criticism and perfectly throws their arguments back in their faces. This piece is perfect evidence that the insane arguments made by the right are easily defeated one fact is used against them.